


Begin Again

by acollectionofdaydreams



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Margo POV, Margo and Eliot, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Q is Alive, post 4x13, queliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:05:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acollectionofdaydreams/pseuds/acollectionofdaydreams
Summary: After the battle with the monsters, Q checks himself into a mental hospital, and Eliot gets better. We see everyone recovering and finding their new beginnings via Margo's point of view.





	Begin Again

Eliot was different after the possession. He was calmer, more subdued, and carried himself with a sort of quiet maturity. Margo found it baffling. She knew Eliot would be changed by the experience, but she hadn’t expected anything like this. Truthfully, she’d expected a lot more substance abuse. This Eliot was careful though. Cautious. Quentin was much the same.

Pretty much immediately after the monster and his sister had been tossed into the seam, Quentin checked himself into a mental hospital for a few days. According to Penny23, there had been a close call in the mirror world. None of them had realized he had gotten that bad. In hindsight, they probably should have, but everyone had their own separate fucked up messes to deal with as usual. Between her best friends and Fillory, Margo felt like she was being pulled in all directions. She obviously cared about Quentin and her kingdom, but she had to make a choice about where to focus her attention. That was obviously going to be Eliot. 

Julia was enough of a wreck for the both of them over Quentin anyway and hadn’t stopped feeling guilty yet. She followed him around like a worried parent making sure he ate enough and was taking his medication now that he was back in Kady’s apartment with the rest of them. He was going to weekly group therapy meetings for his PTSD at her insistence, and Eliot had started going too. She never thought she’d see the day Eliot would be in therapy, but god knows he needed it.

Eliot was unconscious for most of Quentin’s hospital stay, but Margo had thought he was going to come undone when he woke up and found out where Quentin was. That had been a pretty bad fight.

“What do you mean he’s in a mental hospital?!” Eliot had yelled, “Didn’t anyone check on him? How did you guys let him get this bad?!”

This had drawn several people’s attention, and Margo had tried to shush him to no avail.

“We didn’t know, Eliot!” she’d said, “We were a little more worried about saving you!”

“Well, I wasn’t here to worry about him and you should have,” he’d said coldly, “You know how important he is.”

“I’m sorry, El,” she said, “but he’s fine and he’s getting the help he needs.”

“But he almost wasn’t fine, and we could have lost him forever. He hates that place. If he was bad enough to go back… I could have woken up and he’d been dead, and what kind of world would that be?” Eliot said, growing more and more upset with every word.

Eliot had started crying after that and had to be sedated to keep him from tearing out his stitches. On top of everything that had happened, Quentin’s hospitalization seemed to be what pushed Eliot over the edge. As soon as she was sure he’d be out for awhile, Margo had stormed out of the room and right down to the hospital where Quentin was staying.

“Ma’am, unfortunately visiting hours are over,” the poor tired receptionist tried to explain, but Margo was not having it.

“I don’t motherfucking care if it’s visiting hours or not. Eliot is awake, and Quentin needs to know,” she replied, with all the authority of a high king.

The receptionist agreed to pass the message along to Quentin and said Margo was welcome to come back tomorrow at 9am. She hadn’t gone back. Quentin showed up in Eliot’s hospital room the next day though. Since then, they’d been pretty much attached at the hip. 

Margo wasn’t exactly sure when or why, but Quentin and Alice had clearly broken up to no one’s surprise. Again. Alice had left when Zelda called her and asked for help with the Library, and no one except Kady had seen her since. Margo couldn’t say she was particularly sad to see her go. She wasn’t sure anyone had fully forgiven her for destroying the keys in Castle Blackspire, even if they’d reluctantly worked together to save Eliot and Julia. Then again, she was never that close to Alice after her poorly received attempt at befriending her while Eliot fawned over Quentin back at Brakebills. Margo wasn’t one to beg for people to like her.

They’d spent the first night Eliot was home curled up together in the room Julia had prepared for them. Margo held onto him like a lifeline. It felt like he was comforting her more than the other way around, but she’d just missed him so goddamn much. She’d found him in Quentin’s room the next night when she went looking for him though. He was propped up with probably half the pillows in the apartment, and Quentin was asleep next to him. Their hands were clasped loosely between them. It was so precious Margo thought she might throw up. Eliot sleeping in Quentin’s room became a thing after that, and she tried really hard not to ask Eliot about it. She never really got a lot of time alone with Eliot anyways, and it was starting to seriously bug her because it sort of felt like he was avoiding her. He was getting better though at least.

She was sitting in a chair scrolling through her Instagram feed and semi-watching Julia prepare brunch when the boys came downstairs late one morning. Because that was a thing they did now. They came downstairs in the morning together like a married couple, exchanging smiles and glances across the kitchen like no one else could see. 

“About time you two woke up,” she said.

“You can’t rush perfection, Bambi,” Eliot replied, waving a hand at his perfectly styled hair. He’d gotten it cut almost immediately after he left the hospital, and it was much shorter than he’d kept it in recent years. It resembled the style he’d worn at the start of their second year. She suspected he wanted as much of the monster gone as possible.

“Then what’s his excuse?” she pointed at Quentin, who shot her a look as he brushed past and made a beeline for the coffee maker. 

She laughed, never able to resist picking on him. He was like the younger brother she never wanted. 

Eliot leaned against the counter and directed a look at her that said, “Be nice.”

She just shrugged and went back to her phone.

“What’s for breakfast?” Quentin asked, peeking over Julia’s shoulder as he reached for two mugs from the cabinet.

“Did you take your medication?” she countered.

Quentin rolled his eyes, “Yes, mother.”

“Good,” she grinned, “then it’s pancakes.”

Margo sighed and sat her phone down on the kitchen island. Instagram was boring these days without Bacchus. She watched as Quentin silently poured two cups of coffee, two sugars in one of them, and passed one to Eliot. Eliot leaned down and kissed Quentin once on the lips as he accepted the mug. Margo’s jaw dropped slightly. What the fuck. That was new. She made eye contact with Eliot, who was leaning against the counter with the black coffee mug grasped tightly in his hands. 

“Care to join me on the balcony for a minute, El?” she asked.

Eliot and Quentin’s eyes darted to each other, and a whole conversation seemed to take place in a matter of a few seconds between them. Quentin nodded.

“Hello?” Margo asked, snapping her fingers in front of Eliot.

“Of course,” he smiled at her then gestured in front of him, “lead the way.”

Margo stepped out into the bright New York sunshine and turned quickly to shut the door behind Eliot as he stepped outside. He casually walked past her to lean against the railing and take a sip of his coffee. She placed her hands on her hips and gave him an exasperated look.

“What the fuck was that?” she asked.

“Things have… changed between Q and I,” Eliot said slowly, as if he was choosing his words carefully.

“Well, no shit!” she exclaimed. 

She fixed him with a hard glare for a minute when he didn’t say anything else, but it melted into a softer smile when he met her eyes. He looked so happy and content. She’d never seen him quite like this. He had been infatuated before, like with Mike, but this was different. Real. She sighed and walked three steps across the balcony to lean against the railing next to him. They could see Julia fussing over Quentin through the glass where they stood.

“So, you love him,” she said, not really a question.

He bumped his shoulder into hers lightly and said, “Yeah, I do.”

“How long has this been going on?” she asked. She was genuinely curious because maybe she’d been a little preoccupied running a kingdom, but she didn’t remember them having time for a love affair while the world was ending.

He shifted and took another drink of his coffee. 

“Would you believe me if I said fifty years?” he asked.

She craned her neck around to make eye contact with him and replied flatly, “No.”

He laughed then and asked, “Do you remember that key quest Q and I went on alone? In Fillory?”

“You mean the one I stopped from ever happening when I dug up Jane Chatwin’s rotting corpse? Yeah, I do,” she said.

“Well,” he cocked his head to the side, “It sort of still happened. At least we have our memories of it.”

“And those memories were?” she asked, surprised Eliot had never brought this up before.

“A lifetime,” he replied. “We had a family, a son. Grandkids. We spent our whole lives together in that timeline.”

“You mean like, together-together, right?” she asked.

“Yes,” Eliot said. He sighed. “Q asked me afterwards in the throne room if I wanted to try again, here. I told him no. I was afraid.”

“Well, shit,” Margo said. 

Eliot looked down into his coffee. She could tell he was still ashamed because she knew him. She knew how big his heart was under all that hard armor and how deeply he loved, better than anyone else did. Except maybe Quentin now.

“I guess you fixed it though?” she asked.

“We’re trying,” he amended. “It’s not going to be easy, but we’re both all in.”

He met her gaze then, and she couldn’t help but be flooded with emotion for her best friend. 

“I’m proud of you, El,” she said. 

He laughed and she continued, “I mean it. We’ve been through a hell of a lot, and I know things aren’t the same between us and haven’t been for a long time. But I’m proud of you. You deserve to be happy, and so does super nerd in there.”

She gestured towards the apartment with her head and smiled. She could feel herself tearing up a bit, and Eliot was already halfway there too. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest. He set his coffee aside and wrapped his arms around her too, pulling her to him. She could smell his signature cologne, and it was as comforting as a childhood blanket to her. It was home.

“So, I’m going to be going back to Fillory soon,” she said.

“Hmm,” Eliot hummed.

“I guess since Fen is high king now, she can do whatever the fuck she wants so she’s lifting my banishment,” she explained.

“I’m sure Josh misses you too,” Eliot supplied.

“He better,” Margo said.

Eliot laughed, and she could feel it as his chest moved beneath her. She squeezed a little bit tighter, careful to avoid his still healing wound.

“You’re coming with, right?” she asked. “You can bring nerd boy in there too.”

She was met with silence, so she stepped out of his embrace and looked at him. He glanced to the side, out into the city. She knew what the answer was, but she thought she needed him to say it.

“We need some time,” Eliot finally answered. “Q, he isn’t really okay yet. I’m not sure I am either. We’ve been talking about getting out of the city and taking some time to... figure it out, I guess.” 

“You and Coldwater are going to go all Brokeback Mountain, aren’t you?” she asked smugly.

Eliot pushed her shoulder gently and smiled. 

“Shut up, you know I don’t look good in cowboy boots,” he said.

They both laughed, and Margo stared at him in silence. He truly wasn’t the same person she’d known for the last few years, and maybe she wasn’t the same person either. There was a time when she thought she couldn’t live without Eliot, but maybe the time for them to live their own lives had finally come. 

“I’m gonna miss you,” she said.

He reached out and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear.

“I’ll be one messenger bunny away,” he promised.

“And you better visit too,” she said.

“Of course,” Eliot replied.

She hugged him tightly one more time before stepping back and opening the apartment door. 

“Go on, before Quentin thinks I’m holding you hostage out here,” she said.

He grinned as he brushed past her and joined Quentin on the sofa where he was looking over some blueprints Kady had laid out across the coffee table. Quentin automatically leaned into Eliot’s side. Eliot placed a kiss on his temple, and his hand came to rest gently on Quentin’s upper thigh.

Margo stood in the doorway, watching them. For the first time, she knew they were going to be just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr at folie-a-hayley! :)


End file.
